So, hey, shiny things are pretty awesome.

I also get a lot of questions about tiaras and figured I may as well write a quick tutorial for them since it’s pretty easy and I kind of love this technique and use it for lots of things other than bob moon tiaras.  Who knows, maybe it’ll help someone else out down the road and that’d be pretty cool.

Materials:

Craft foam (the thin stuff preferably)
Card stock or light plastic (for eternal tiaras)
Scissors
Rubber Cement or Spray Adhesive (Spray Adhesive is better)
Gold Metallic Spandex (You can get this from a lot of different places- I’m a big fan of Spandex House though)
Glue (E-6000 is godly)
Gem (Oval cabochon for regular tiaras, star for eternal)

NOW LET’S DO THIS THING.

(This whole thing was put together in pdf form originally, so the images are all smashed together, my apologies for how weird it looks – at least you still get the idea.  Also, if you want the quick version of this tutorial – this is it:

Use spray adhesive to stick metallic gold spandex to craft foam.

Or you could read the blow-by-blow super long version below.)

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1.  You need a pattern.  Here’s one for an eternal tiara (print on 8.5″ x 11″ paper)

2.  Cut out the top and bottom pieces (the ‘both pieces together’ piece was just for reference to see how the size of the tiara looks finished if you put it against your forehead.)

3. Lay the bottom pattern piece that you’ve cut out on top of some craft foam  (color doesn’t matter, it’s going to be covered up) and carefully trace it.  I like to use a ballpoint pen, but that’s just my preference.
Make sure that the pattern doesn’t slide around when you’re doing this, it has to be pretty exact!

4.  Cut the traced piece of craft foam out.  I like to use big scissors so that I can cut the pieces out in as few cuts as possible, it seems easier to get little bumps in your otherwise straight line if you use little scissors.  Try to cut inside the line you made with the pen so that the craft foam piece ends up being exactly the same size as the pattern piece.  If you cut outside the line your craft foam piece will turn out slightly larger and throw things off.  I’m sorry if that seems horribly obvious.

5.  Trace your ‘top’ pattern piece onto a piece of cardstock.  Nothing too heavy!  It should be just heavier than regular printer paper. (I’m not using cardstock in this demo, but rather a really lightweight plastic.  It doesn’t really make a difference, I just didn’t have any cardstock on hand.

6. Woo, now cut that top piece out.

7. Make sure to hold your craft foam piece and cardstock piece up against each other and make sure they line up.  That’s… pretty important.  It’s going to look screwy if they don’t.  If using spray adhesive:  Spray the sides you want to stick together and… well… stick them together.  If using rubber cement: Brush on a thin layer of the cement to both the cardstock and craft foam pieces on the sides that you want to stick together.  Let them air dry for a minute and then carefully line them up and stick them together.  Goopy rubber cement does not hold as well as dry cement!

8. AWESOME.  Now you have a goofy looking v shape, aren’t you pleased with yourself?  No?  Fine.  Okay, so let’s make this thing shiny.  Lay your goofy v piece of stuck together cardstock and craft foam against a bit of gold metallic spandex (which has hopefully been ironed and does not look all awful and wrinkly like the piece in the picture) and eyeballing it cut out a rough piece of the spandex with about 1 cm on all sides (yes, I’m using metric and English measurements, sorry).

9.  Spray adhesive or rubber cement the top of your v piece (the side with the cardstock showing) and the WRONG SIDE (not the shiny side) of your metallic spandex.  If using rubber cement make sure you don’t get any little balls of cement, it’s really important that the rubber cement is completely smooth, as any bumps are going to be really noticable.

10. Lay the v shape face down onto the metallic spandex so that the sticky sides are now together.  Carefully smooth that front surface down/apply some pressure to make sure the entire front of the v is stuck to the metallic spandex (these descriptions are AWFUL, I’m sorry).

11.  Spray adhesive/rubber cement the back of the v AND the sides of the craft foam (yes, even though it’s only 1/8″ wide)

12. Stick that all together (wow, descriptive) but don’t pull the spandex too much if you can help it.  At the base of the v you may need to make a cut and do some clever folding.  Hopefully the pictures help because I’m giving up on adjectives.

13.  SUPER COOL.  Now you have the base of the tiara.  It doesn’t matter too much what the ends of it look like since they’ll be tucked up under your wig/wig cap but I like to trim them so they’re even and there aren’t little bits of things hanging all over the place.   Now, using your fingernail or the eye end of a needle or… whatever… pinch in a line down the tiara to define that tiny ridge between the craft foam and card stock.  Since I am not so great with these descriptions, hopefully the pictures will let you know what ‘pinching in a line’ means because seriously… I don’t know how else to explain it.

14.  YOU’RE (mostly) DONE!  Now you can just glue on the gem of your choice to the middle of the tiara and stick the whole shebang on your forehead.   I use bobby pins to attach the tiara to my head under the wig cap, or sometimes I don’t bobby pin it at all and just slide the ends of the tiara up under my wig after I’ve put the wig on.

One final note- this is just how I do the anime/manga tiara stuff, the Myu ones are plastic (see below).